“YOU HAVE TO STEP A LITTLE BIT OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE. THAT’S WHY YOU GET THE INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCES”

In this episode, Julian sat down with Mie & Scott who have been sailing around the world until COVID hit. But before their adventurous sailing life, Mie had joined our Sri Lanka Tuk-Tuk Adventure.

Click here to listen to the whole chat.

Julian Carnall: What are your memories of driving a tuk-tuk in Sri Lanka?

“YOU GET THE SAME CHALLENGE, BUT CAN COMPLETE IT IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS”

Mie: What I remember most is actually the morning briefings. We were all standing there and we had no idea what was going on. We would always be so surprised by what kind of challenges we would get every day. So I really enjoyed those morning meetings getting excited about the day. And then also in the evening, you would meet with the other teams at the hotels or the campsite where we would be staying. It was just super fun to talk to everyone and live through their experience in the day because you get the same challenge, but you can complete it in so many different ways. What did they experience? How did they complete the challenges? I was just a very cool way of getting into the culture in Sri Lanka. Normally, when you travel, you have to push yourself to get into the cultures to talk to people in that way. It’s a really nice way to experience a culture and also meet people from around the world.

Julian Carnall: What about driving the tuk-tuk itself? Did you find that quite straightforward? Or did it take some time to get used to it?

Mie: No, I don’t remember it being a problem at all. So it must have been straightforward. And I’ve never driven a motorbike before. I don’t think people should hold back due to doubt. They don’t drive extremely fast. And we are not encouraged to drive fast. So you can just take it in the pace you want.

Julian Carnall: Some people get the wrong impression sometimes about the challenges because it sounds like it’s just a competitive event, which it’s not. It’s an option for people to do and it just encourages them to get off the beaten path and, get over certain barriers. Are those the kind of memories you have from the challenges?

“JUST BY TRYING TO COMPLETE THE CHALLENGES, YOU HAVE ALREADY WON”

Mie: Yeah, I mean, I am competitive, but I didn’t go for winning, I just went for wanting to complete the challenges, because I knew that that would bring some fun to the experience, and pushing myself to actually do the challenges because you have to step a little bit outside your comfort zone. That’s why you get incredible experiences. So that’s what I went for. And that’s how we ended up winning. I don’t think any of the other teams felt pressured to win, or that was not the main purpose for being there. Just by trying to complete the challenges you have already won, I would say.

Julian Carnall: That’s exactly the spirit. I’ve been following your journey on and off for three years. Did you do a lot of sailing in the Mediterranean?

Scott: We did about 6 months. You could easily spend years there. I mean, there’s so many different beautiful harbours. The sailing isn’t the best in the world, but being on the water in Greece, those towns in Croatia. There’s no other place in the world like it.

Mie: Italy is amazing as well. We could have spent so much more time there.

Julian Carnall: Italy is a place that we’ve recently kind of started doing adventures in. It’s such a great place. Have you had any scary moments being on the boat?

Scott: It was actually right at the beginning. So we were crossing between Palermo and Menorca, which is right by Majorca. And we got hit by a storm that wasn’t forecasted. We were getting 45 knots, which is I guess, times 1.8 so probably like 70 kilometers an hour. Winds and waves that were halfway up the mast like 10-meter waves on the boat and we were so green at the time. I mean that in an inexperienced way, but we actually were kind of sick too. So I guess in both ways, we just left it on autopilot and the boat took care of itself. So it taught us pretty early that the boat can really handle a lot more than we can but it was in retrospect we probably pushed it a bit too hard considering the weather conditions.

Mie: Our crew Amanda was just having a blast in the cockpit riding the waves in the cockpit and smiling the whole time. Also being seasick but he was a racer himself and he just enjoyed it so much blindly thinking we had everything under control.

On our last crossing when suddenly we had water inside the boat. We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the biggest ocean in the world and there were just the two of us and the weather was pretty bad. Big waves were just slamming the entire time. I think I was a little bit more scared then.

Listen to the full episode here.